


Power

by shykia1029



Series: Pre-Series Oneshots [1]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 09:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shykia1029/pseuds/shykia1029
Summary: Logan is twelve years old the first time his father puts a cigarette out on his skin.





	Power

Logan is twelve years old the first time his father puts a cigarette out on his skin.  


He was supposed to be home early that day, something about a photoshoot of the whole happy family in their spanking-brand-new mansion in Neptune, California.  


Instead, he’d accepted an invitation to spend that afternoon at the house of one Duncan Kane, heir to the Kane family fortune and the first person he’d met in Neptune who hadn’t brought up Aaron Echolls in the first thirty seconds after meeting him.  


Instead, he’d met Duncan’s sister and her best friend, who sunbathed and read magazines by the pool while he and Duncan did cannonballs and jackknives and backflips into the water, ostensibly trying to splash them enough to chase them inside. Eventually, the boys reigned triumphant when Lilly pushed Veronica into the pool before screaming joyously and jumping in after her.  


Instead, he’d come home late, still grinning under his mop of damp hair.  


When Veronica’s father picked her up from Duncan’s, he’d offered her new friend a ride home too. When Veronica had climbed into the front seat next to Mr. Mars, she’d shaken her head wildly and with great intention, spraying the car interior and her father’s shirt with pool water. Logan had frozen in the act of buckling his seatbelt in the back, wondering what would happen, if Mr. Mars would hit her right there or just glare at her with the obvious threat of what was to come when they were alone. But Veronica’s father had laughed, ruffled her wet hair and kissed the top of her head, glancing back at Logan with a wry smile that said _What can you do, that’s Veronica._  


And when he opened the door to their spanking-brand-new mansion to see his father, sitting in his armchair, holding a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, waiting for him, the smile fell because he had forgotten and he was _sorry, he was so sorry he’d made a friend and went to his house and totally forgot-_  


Later, in the shower, he scrubs the chlorine out of his hair and tries to direct the shower spray away from the perfect circle branded into his shoulder and thinks about Duncan’s laughter and Lilly’s scream of joy and Veronica’s smile as her wet hair whipped back and forth in the front seat of her father’s car. 

  


A week later, Logan finds his mother’s purse open on the kitchen counter. Inside is a pack of cigarettes, all but three missing. Without even really thinking about it, he looks around furtively before grabbing the box and shoving it in his pocket.  


That night, he sneaks away his mother’s engraved lighter and sits on his bed and flicks the flame on and off. He brings it to the tip of one of the three stolen cigarettes. It takes him three tries to light it.  


He stares at the glowing tip of the cigarette, jittering in his left hand, and holds out his right.  


For a second it hurts more than he thought it was possible to hurt.  


Then something happens, like his brain disconnects from his screaming right hand and he’s only on one side of the interaction, he’s just his brain and his left hand burning the shit out of some other guy’s poor right hand, some other guy’s skin, and he feels power like he never has before.  


Then the burning becomes too much and his right hand is his again and he jerks it away and the rush of cool air against the burn hurts almost as much as the cigarette had.  


He looks at the burning cigarette and the circle branded into his palm and his own face in the mirror above the wardrobe facing his bed and thinks about how good it felt to have that power, even for just a second, and thinks _Maybe that’s why he does it._  


Then he drops the cigarette to the ground and later he’ll be glad it didn’t land on the rug but right now he can’t care because all he can focus on is getting to his trash can before he throws up. 

  


The next day at the lunch table, Veronica notices him struggling to manage his plastic fork with his non-dominant hand and frowns, reaching down between them and pulling at his right wrist.  


“Did something happen to-“ She cuts herself off with a gasp when he fails to make a fist in time to conceal the burn. “Logan! What happened?”  


Once again, his hand burns but it only burns where her fingers touch as they delicately but deliberately uncurl his own. He grins.  


“Here’s a tip, Ronnie,” he says. “Don’t play with matches.”  


She swallows and his quip didn’t work as well as he’d wanted it to but thank God, Lilly jumps in with her own.  


“Playing with matches is one third of the homicidal triad, you know.” She grins and leans forward across the table towards Logan. “You’re lucky I like bad boys.”  


Logan flushes and Duncan mimes throwing up before adding, with his own grin, “So is bed wetting. Anything you want to tell us, buddy?”  


Veronica grimaces but laughs despite herself when Logan reaches across the table at him, grabbing for his shirt and miming a punch. She lets go of his hand but she doesn’t just drop it, she sets it down gently on the table surface like it’s a baby bird she’s returning to its nest after it tried to fly and failed. 

  


When the new housekeeper finds the two remaining cigarettes under his mattress, Logan’s father sits him down with a full pack and watches him smoke them all, one after the other, with only one short break to throw up and be backhanded for it.  


It takes a while. Logan’s never actually smoked before. He doesn’t know how. 

  


Logan’s first kiss is with Lilly Kane at Madison Sinclair’s fourteenth birthday party. It was Lilly’s idea to play Spin the Bottle but Logan didn’t know, he supposed he would never know, if she was hoping this would be the result. When he takes his turn spinning, she grins at him across the circle and Veronica rolls her eyes good-naturedly. Logan watches the bottle spin and hopes it lands on Lilly and hopes to God it doesn’t land on Veronica but doesn’t know why because if it landed on any other girl in the circle, he wouldn’t exactly mind giving them a chance.  


It lands on Lilly and she crawls towards him, grabs the back of his neck, and kisses his firmly. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to lean forward or open his mouth or touch her face, all he knows is that the rest of the party, the rest of the _world_ , falls away and all that exists is the place where his and Lilly’s lips touch just like that time all that existed was the place where his skin met the end of a burning cigarette.  


Veronica’s first kiss is two minutes later, after Duncan gets up and leaves the circle in disgust that is only half-mocking.  
The game continues without him and three turns later some guy Logan’s never met but really seems like an asshole spins and it lands on Veronica and Veronica seems kind of reluctant but Lilly is laughing and pushing her forward and then her lips are touching the lips of the guy Logan doesn’t know but really, really seems like an asshole.  


Later, he sits with his legs in Madison Sinclair’s hot tub but nothing else because he’s learned that hot tubs and fresh belt marks are a really bad combo. Veronica appears behind him and sits down too, dipping her toes in carefully before letting the rest of her feet follow.  


“Hey,” she says. “Kissing. Huh. Kind of overrated, am I right?”  


Logan thinks back to the moment when nothing in the world existed beyond Lilly’s mouth.  


“Yeah,” he says. “Overrated.”  


She drops her head sideways onto his shoulder and before he can consider not doing it he turns his head and touches his lips to her forehead for the briefest of moments.  


“She likes you, too, you know,” Veronica whispers conspiratorially, and he’s gotten better at not blushing so he doesn’t.  


“Not just me,” he says, but he isn’t bitter because that’s just who Lilly is and they’re only fourteen, it’s not like he’s looking to marry her.  


“You more than the rest,” Veronica concedes, bumping their bare feet together.  


Logan says, “Well, Duncan likes you too.”  


Veronica shrugs against his shoulder. “That’s what Lilly thinks, too.”  


He has to dislodge her head to look down at her. She’s avoiding his eyes, looking down at their feet in the water and biting her lip.  


“Ronnie.” She looks up at him. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”  


Veronica hasn’t trained herself not to blush, so she does.  


“Sure.”  


“You are.”  


Veronica cracks a small, deflective smile. “So are you.”  


He laughs and lets it go. “Thanks. I think.”  


“I think you’re welcome.”  


He puts his arm around her and they look up at the clear sky in silence. 

  


When he’s fifteen, he sneaks out of the house with the keys to the Jag and drives to the Kane’s house, where Lilly and Veronica are having a sleepover. They meet him with Duncan at the bottom of the long driveway. They drive and drive and only stop once for tacos.  


Lilly wants to pay for them with a flash of her breasts but she’s Logan’s girlfriend now so Veronica talks her out of it while Duncan pays with a crisp hundred-dollar bill.  


On the way back, he gets busted for driving with only his learner’s permit and his name is enough to keep it off the record officially but not enough to keep his parents and, naturally, the sheriff, from finding out.  


The beating hurts but the frown Mr. Mars gives him the next time he sees Logan hurts more. 

  


When he and Lilly have sex for the first time, he lets her be on top but he pulls her hands away from his back so she won’t feel the scars there. She does kiss the mark on his shoulder, the perfectly circular one.  


“Where’s that from?” she murmurs.  


“Surfing,” he says, which makes no sense at all but it doesn’t matter because she’s moved her mouth down to his nipple and she’s wrapped tightly around him and nothing has ever felt better than this. 

  


On the beach, the night of homecoming, they all walk together, laughing.  


“Veronica,” Lilly says. “Tell Duncan I’m a better kisser than him.”  


Duncan groans. “Please don’t remind me that happened.”  


“Tell him!”  


“Duncan,” Veronica says sweetly. “You’re the best kisser. Lilly, you’re second, I promise.”  


“He’s not better than Logan,” Lilly says. “Right, babe?”  


“Right,” Logan laughs, stopping and spinning Lilly around and pulling her into his body, kissing her hard and long.  


“You wouldn’t know,” Veronica points out. “Unless you and Duncan have something you need to tell us.”  


“That’s it,” Lilly says, pulling away from Logan and gesturing with the bottle of champagne in her hand. “Kiss-off. You. Duncan. Logan. Go.”  


“You’re not serious,” Duncan says, and Logan laughs.  


“Of course she’s serious.” Lilly has never used that voice, the one with the dare in it that warms his heart and flips his stomach and kind of scares him, when she hasn’t been serious.  


“C’mere,” Lilly says, grabbing Veronica’s wrist with her free hand and pulling her towards Logan. “Unless you want me to kiss Duncan, it’s the only way to settle this.”  


“I would do literally anything to not have to see you kiss Duncan,” Logan says, and his eyes meet Veronica’s and hers dart toward Duncan’s then back to his. She gives him a shrug and there’s some kind of permission in her soft eyes so he leans forward and she does too.  


He means to just give her a peck, just for a second, just enough to appease Lilly, but a weird desire seizes him to actually _win_ the goddamn kiss-off. He puts in more effort than he meant to and definitely uses more tongue than he meant to and when he pulls away somehow his hand is tangled in her hair. He lets go and avoids Duncan’s eyes but Lilly doesn’t seem to mind, she’s just laughing.  


“Now you,” she says, pointing at Duncan, and Logan watches as he shrugs and sweeps Veronica up and kisses her deeply and even kind of dips her like she’s a princess or something.  


Logan vaguely wonders if Duncan can taste Logan’s kiss on her lips. Probably not, he thinks, they’ve all been guzzling the same champagne all night.  


“Verdict?” Lilly asks when they finally separate, and Veronica giggles.  


“Sorry, Logan,” she says. “Duncan’s still the best.”  


He knows that’s what she’s supposed to answer and it’s probably true anyway but it still kind of feels like someone just punched him in the throat.  


"Don't worry, baby," Lilly says, pulling him down to her level by his shirt collar. "They're just jealous." 

When their lips meet, Veronica and Duncan and the rest of the beach and the rest of the world disappear. 

  


The next time he sees Duncan, Logan’s wrist is in a brace. It’s Monday morning and they’ve all been firmly grounded for the foreseeable future.  


“Hey, man,” Duncan says, tapping on the locker next to Logan’s to get his attention. “What happened there?”  


Logan rolls his eyes. “You’d think Trina knows enough about shoes to not leave them at the top of the fucking stairs, wouldn’t you?”  


Duncan just looks at him and Logan doesn’t like that at all so he hurries to move on.  


“Look, man, about that thing with Veronica- “  


“It’s fine,” Duncan says, finally cracking a wry smile. “We were all wasted. I’ll get you back as soon as you’re dating someone who isn’t my sister, okay?”  


“Deal,” Logan says, slamming his locker shut with the hand that’s in the brace and not even really noticing the jolt of pain it sends down his arm. 

  


Logan is sixteen when his girlfriend is murdered. 

  


For a month or so after Lilly’s murder, Logan’s father is oddly nice to him. He gets pissed off plenty, but whenever he moves towards Logan with a hand ready to strike, he suddenly stops himself and walks away with a mutter.  


Logan guesses he feels sorry for him or something. He wonders if he’ll be lucky enough for someone else to die and extend the reprieve and laughs with burning eyes.  


But he knows it will end, of course it will end, and waiting for the end is torture, so pushes it, forces his father to give. He cuts class and calls Trina a slut right to his face and takes the Jag around the block just to scratch it against a hydrant.  


That last one works. And that night, his dad lets out all the other ones that he held back, makes up for letting the cut classes and slut sneezing and everything else slide with each strike of the belt. 

  


After he loses Lilly, Logan loses everything else too.  


Well, not everything. Not his house, his car, his elite circle.  


But he loses Veronica and Duncan is a zombie so he’s lost him too.  


Veronica probably thinks _she_ lost everything. Like she didn’t have a choice. Like she had been forced to turn her back on him and Duncan and the life they’d all built together. Like she had been forced to choose the sheriff who probably hated Logan’s guts by now over them. Over him.  


He wants to scream at her that he would never choose his father over her. Never. He doesn’t even care if it’s fair or not. He just wants to scream at her.  


He doesn’t. He can’t let her know he cares that much. Instead he throws her out. Discards her like a cigarette butt dropped on the beach, destined to either be picked up by some criminal with community service duty or choked on by some unlucky sea turtle. Nobody cares what happens to the cigarette butts they drop on the beach and if he has anything to say about it nobody is going to care about Veronica Mars either. 

  


At Shelley Pomeroy’s end of the year party, Veronica shows up wearing a virginal white dress and a cautious, desperate expression.  


He sees her later and she’s totally wasted, half-asleep on a lounger by the pool. Probably couldn’t take all the stares and whispers and turned to the vodka to drown it out.  


When he pours salt on her neck and puts a lime in her mouth, he realizes that he hasn’t felt this powerful since the time he branded a circle into his own hand and knew that the pain was happening because of him, because he _wanted_ it to, because he had the fucking power.  


He feels it again, now. Everything he’s done to her at school, all the rumors and pranks and dismissals, it’s all led up to this, this moment when he finally has complete power over Veronica Mars, anything at all he wants to do to her he can.  


This time, he doesn’t throw up. He fights back he bile in his throat and pours another shot and hates himself. 

  


Two days later, she shows up at school with most of her hair chopped off. She’s wearing black boots and a leather jacket and a murderous expression.  


At lunch, he asks her, loudly enough for the whole courtyard to hear, if this means she’s finally come out as a friend of Ellen’s.  


Their eyes meet and he expects to see hurt there but instead all he sees is disdain. Disgust. Dismissal.  


And he suddenly realizes that he has no power over her, not anymore.  


Maybe he never did.


End file.
